wfn.org | Technology breakthroughs to enhance

[ENS.parti@ecunet.org (ENS)]

October 16, 1997
Episcopal News Service
Jim Solheim, Director
212-922-5385
ens@ecunet.org

97-1979
Technology breakthroughs to enhance communications at Lambeth in
1998

by Michael Barwell
      (ENS)  Anglican bishops from around the world attending the
1998 Lambeth Conference in Canterbury, England, next summer will be
able to keep in touch with their dioceses and each other using the
Internet.
      "The bishops and conference staff will be sending out news and
other information in multi-lingual forms as fast as possible," said the
Rev. Peter Moore, an Australian priest serving as a missionary in
Uruguay who is heading the electronics media planning team for
Lambeth. "They will be able to keep in touch with home and people at
home will see the value and usefulness of conferencing here. It will be a
two-way deal."
      The Lambeth Conference is held every 10 years at the invitation
of the archbishop of Canterbury. An international communications
planning team for Lambeth recently met at the University of Kent, where
an estimated 1,250 bishops, their spouses and staff members will gather
for three weeks in July and August next year. Plans include operating a
news service, establishing a campus electronic mail system, connecting
the conference to the worldwide Internet and establishing web pages for
some dioceses or provinces.
      "We will be disseminating news and information throughout the
Anglican Communion more quickly and widely than at any time in
history," said the Rev. Kris Lee, director of telecommunications for the
Episcopal Church.

An `instrument of unity'
      "This new capability to communicate through the Inter Anglican
Information Networks (IAIN) can be seen as an `instrument of unity' for
the  entire Anglican Communion," said Lee. "Now the people in the
pews, around the world, can participate almost as it happens."
      "This has been a long-term vision of the staff of the Anglican
Communion Offices," said the Rev. Joan Ford, director of
telecommunications in London. "We've been working hard to make this
happen."
      The electronic communications team, including Greg Mills and
Clifford Hicks of Australia, the Rev. Ron Barnes and the Rev. Ian
McKenzie of British Columbia, Canada, and Ricardo Tucas of Chile,
also will provide bishops and staff with demonstrations of computer and
software equipment, and offer consultations on how to prepare to use
them in their home dioceses.
      Basic services to be offered on campus include electronic mail for
all bishops.
      "Each bishop, spouse, and staff member will be assigned an
electronic user name when they arrive on campus," Lee explained. "They
will be able to use that account during and after the conference when
they return home, so that the Lambeth Conference can actually be an
ongoing discussion for the Anglican Communion."
      A majority of funding for the Lambeth communications project is
being supported by grants from Trinity Parish, New York, as part of
their global telecommunications ministry for the worldwide Anglican
Communion. 
      Barnes, who manages the Anglican Church of Canada's newest
system, NWNet, said the Lambeth system "will be simple, easy to use,
and more secure than normal Internet e-mail or meetings." 
      More traditional communications devices such as mail, telephone
and facsimile services also will be provided at the communications
center. That program, led by Jim Rosenthal, director of communications
for the Lambeth Conference, will include more than 50 volunteers from
various provinces of the Anglican Communion. Presiding bishop-elect
Frank Griswold will be one of a six-member team to handle press
inquiries, Rosenthal said.

Technology breakthrough
      Many of the advanced telecommunications plans for Lambeth are
the result of recent breakthroughs in hardware, software, and internet
capabilities, the planners explained. 
      "IAIN is conscious that most Anglicans, up to 70 percent, do not
have direct Internet access," Tucas explained. "But IAIN will offer dial-
up access for global south users to be connected to the rest of the
Anglican Communion and to be able to speak to issues which would be
much more difficult by standard mail or very expensive by telephone or
fax. The IAIN managers have created a system that will allow easy
access and participation throughout the communion."
      By installing a new program in several locations, the IAIN
networks also will be able to connect with each other, said Mills,
director of the Australasian Christian Communications Network
(ACCNet). An active Anglican lay leader who owns a large computer
and telecommunications firm in Deakin, Australia, he added, "Whether
our computers are based in Canada, Australia, Africa or the U.S., this
new system will allow different networks around the world to be fully
integrated and to work with each other. Our worldwide partners have
agreed to cooperate in this venture, so that people who are very mobile
will now be able to stay in touch around the Anglican Communion,"
Mills said. "Cooperation is the single biggest strength we have."
      "These technological breakthroughs provide an distinct advantage
for inclusion, especially for people in the global south," Moore added.
"We can now be more than receivers of information, we can now
actively participate."
      "We will finally be able to operate IAIN the way it was
envisioned at Lambeth 1988," Lee said. "We have created a means for
helping the conference to communicate, to extend the conference beyond
next summer, and provide a means for keeping in touch globally."
      The IAIN managers said they plan to inaugurate the new system
on Pentecost Sunday 1998, several months before Lambeth.

-- Michael Barwell is deputy director of news and information of the
Episcopal Church and will serve as news director at the Lambeth
Conference.